Thursday, November 11, 2010

Campaign Dresser (finally!)

I FINALLY "finished" the campaign dresser for my office. I didn't even paint it - so you must be thinking what took so long??

When I originally got the dresser, it looked like this (sorry for the crappy photo):



The brass was old, dingy and almost black. It looked very much like this:


[ via Lonny ]

The dark patina on the hardware looks great on the Lonny piece because it's painted white. But I wanted to keep my piece in the original wood finish and I wanted that BRIGHT brass look.

I cleaned up the brass corners directly on the piece with Brasso. It worked well, as long as I made sure not to get the Brasso on the wood. It took a LOT of elbow grease but wasn't too difficult.



Then came the knobs. The knobs were in much worse shape. Each knob took about an hour to clean. To my disappointment, when I finally got the grime off I found the brass underneath to be scratched, dull, and just plain ugly. I kept going (why I don't know) and did almost all of the brass knobs. I sat back and thought - no, this won't do.

SO I decided to spray paint the knobs. Little did I know that not all gold spray paint is created equal.



Note how each cap on the bottles is the same color. I even brought my knob to the hardware store with me to match the cap. However, the paint in the first two bottles were night and day different than their caps (annoying!). They paint was dull with a brown-ish hue. Very similar to the gold on the label of the first can.

Luckily the last bottle was PERFECT. And in a matter of 5 minutes, I had perfect brass-y gold knobs.

And here is the final product!



You really can't tell (unless you look very close and examine) that the knobs were sprayed and the corners are original. Not bad for a $50 Craigslist purchase!

In case you are curious, I keep all my fabric remnants and memos in this piece.

ps - don't you LOVE how I styled it? (I'm so kidding).

71 comments:

  1. There is nothing like a good Campaign dresser to start the morning right! Thanks for sharing, Bryn!

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  2. How is it that I can never find campaign furniture on my CL (Nashville)? It's really beautiful Bryn!

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  3. I think you did a great job with this piece! The before & after is so different, it looks like a new piece:)

    Amy R.

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  4. Gorgeous! Speaking of which, when do when get to see your office completed?

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  5. Wow, beautiful job! I love that you kept it dark and shined (or sprayed!) up the brass. It's really a stunning piece now.

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  6. it looks great- what a steal for that piece! $50?!

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  7. I have that same dresser that I bought from a flea market in my hometown. I just haven't done anything to it yet. Guess I will wait until next summer when we move home to Mississippi--- no need to haul it to Alabama for 8 months!

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  8. The dresser looks incredible! I live in Charlotte too, and love reading your blog! Any tips on how to find campaign furniture on Craig's List? I've been searching for months, with no luck!

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  9. Love how it came out! And good advice on the spray paint, I was thinking of doing something with metallic spray paint soon so i'm glad to learn from your trial and error!

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  10. I love that you kept the original wood...so many people paint them, and your's is in amazing condition! Also thanks for doing the legwork on the gold spray paint. I am getting ready to do some pulls and you have saved me tons of trouble :)
    Looks Great!

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  11. So jealous. I need a piece like this for my office too. If yours turns up missing, try my house.

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  12. That is really impressive, it makes all the difference and like that you didn't paint it...the wood looks beautiful!
    Janell

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  13. It looks amazing - I love that you kept the wood and did not paint it, the results are really stunning.

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  14. You found that for 50$ on CL?! Beautiful!

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  15. Georgeous job on the dresser and I love how you kept the original wood tone. I just got a smaller campaign dresser for our nursery and I'm excited to see what it looks like when cleaned up. Looks great!

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  16. Bryn! I just scored a campaign pioece myself and cleaned the hardware using bar keeper's friends. My hands were in rough shape but it turned out pretty well.

    http://daveandjoi.blogspot.com/2010/11/diy-silver-leaf-canvas.html

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  17. Its charming!! I'd love to see your finished office!

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  18. That looks great, Bryn! I have found the Rustoleum metallics to be better than the others, too!

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  19. That looks awesome. I love that you kept the wood. Beauty.

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  20. That looks amazing Bryn! What a great find!!

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  21. Woww...you did such an amazing job on that dresser! Super impressed. That spray paint tip is great...

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  22. That looks amazing! Don't you love Craig's List?

    Jennifer

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  23. This is amazing! A great find and you did such a perfect job of restoring it.

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  24. awesomeness. thanks for sharing it in its un-styled glory :)

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  25. Oooo! I love seeing this! I have a campaign dresser CL score sitting in my living room waiting for me to figure out what I want to do with it. At first I thought definitely paint but lately I'm liking the idea of leaving it wood more and more. Mine isn't in as good condition as your's though. Water marks on the top, scratches and a small piece of the laminate has chipped off the corner of a drawer. How does one fix laminate chips I wonder? Your's looks great, thanks for sharing!

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  26. It looks sooo good- love the gold and I hear you on the spraypaint- I'm trying to do my french chairs and the first gold is almost yellow- on to number 2:) Have a great weekend!

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  27. Thank you or finding the perfect gold spray paint - I just bought one to update a cocktail table and it is definitely the wrong brassy gold. And now - thanks to you, I don't have to hunt through all the other options- I know just which one I want... Thanks thanks!!

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  28. Outstanding Bryn! Maybe I missed this in another post, I'll have to check. You obviously stripped & sanded the piece, right? Curious how long it took you Looks fantastic.

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  29. Oh yes! I have been looking for one as well. I always find the smaller pieces, just waiting for the big momma!

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  30. Adore!!!! that's all there is to it!

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  31. Adore!!!! that's all there is to it!

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  32. Thank you or finding the perfect gold spray paint - I just bought one to update a cocktail table and it is definitely the wrong brassy gold. And now - thanks to you, I don't have to hunt through all the other options- I know just which one I want... Thanks thanks!!

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  33. Oooo! I love seeing this! I have a campaign dresser CL score sitting in my living room waiting for me to figure out what I want to do with it. At first I thought definitely paint but lately I'm liking the idea of leaving it wood more and more. Mine isn't in as good condition as your's though. Water marks on the top, scratches and a small piece of the laminate has chipped off the corner of a drawer. How does one fix laminate chips I wonder? Your's looks great, thanks for sharing!

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  34. awesomeness. thanks for sharing it in its un-styled glory :)

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  35. Woww...you did such an amazing job on that dresser! Super impressed. That spray paint tip is great...

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  36. What a great piece! Nice job. =)

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  37. Its charming!! I'd love to see your finished office!

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  38. You found that for 50$ on CL?! Beautiful!

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  39. Love how it came out! And good advice on the spray paint, I was thinking of doing something with metallic spray paint soon so i'm glad to learn from your trial and error!

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  40. it looks great- what a steal for that piece! $50?!

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  41. I think you did a great job with this piece! The before & after is so different, it looks like a new piece:)

    Amy R.

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  42. I LOVE what you did! Do you by chance know which Rust-oleum you used? I see that there is gold and then there is brass.... I'd love to know which one you used! Thanks!!!

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  43. This was the exact information I was looking for! Thanks.

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  44. Thanks a bunch for the tidbit about which spraypaint to use! I will definitely be using that helpful information soon when I prepare the props which are supposed to be gold or brass but I'm too cheap to pay for the real thing! (I mean really, they're props after all!)

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  45. tiffany :: http://camp1899.comOctober 10, 2012 at 10:31 AM

    thanks for sharing the gold paint comparison, as a fellow diy'er it is SO annoying when the cap & the color are nowhere near the same color! ugh.. turned out fantastic, what a find after all of your restoration (;

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  46. Thanks for posting about this paint!! Very good to know. I suspected rust-oleum was better, I have used it for bronze finish on wooden decorative letters (awesome), but it's nice to see these reviews. Love the project, nice work.

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  47. I've used the gold Krylon and it was fine- you need to shake it well before you use it. You might even want to spray a bit out until the gold starts and it's bright shiny gold that matches the cap. I just used it about 10 days ago to spray paint a figure for a cake topper.

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  48. Beautiful work! I know a fellow perfectionist when I see one!! Congratulations! Thank you for the spray paint information and the inspiration too. Just curious, is this an extremely heavy piece of furniture?

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  49. I have done lots of painting. Rust-olume by far has been the best brand. From color being most orginal to it being less messy. The price differeance is not even a 8ssue once y use something u really like.

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  50. Thanks so much for this! I'm trying to spray paint some frames to match my brass hardware in the bathroom, and didn't want to spend $7.00 on a can of paint, to find it wasn't what I was hoping for! Thanks for saving me time and money! And, I love, love the dresser.

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  51. Wow, I didn't know you got spray paint that looks so real.

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  52. Great info ! I will pin it. Spray paint is tricky, it doesn't always come out like the cap . Thanks!

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  53. The Krylon gold is, hands-down, my favorite gold spray paint. BUT it is definitely a rose gold color not a brass.

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  54. I just spray painted the metal that was originally black on some shoe racks I bought with the Rustoleum Gold Spray paint, and it turned out perfect!!! I guess I just got lucky when I chose that paint!

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  55. What is the name of the perfect paint from Rustoleum?

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